FROM EXPLOSIVES TO ACTING, SHE DOES IT ALL
R.M. Vaughan, rmvaughan@globeandmail.com

Globe and Mail
October 3, 2008
Canada

THE Q&A: INTERVIEW: ANNE BEDIAN

Everybody has to start somewhere. For actor Anne Bedian, the journey
from the kinds of beginner roles you don’t see on the front credits –
nameless roles such as "girlfriend," "mother" or, worse yet, simply
"woman" – to feature parts has been a long, strange one. Her life
story alone reads like an indie film script, starting with a stint
in the navy as a teen, then a degree in accountancy, followed by the
big move to Los Angeles from Montreal. Since then, she has become,
seemingly without much overt planning, an in-demand television actress.

If you’re casting a part that calls for both advanced math skills and
shipworthy knot tying – something between a Bond heroine and one of
those nerdy-but-hot cops from a forensics drama – Bedian is your woman.

Then again, if her new dramedy, The Ex List, takes off, she won’t
need to do much auditioning. Playing Marina, the caustic, no-nonsense
fortune-teller with a tongue as sharp as a shard of busted crystal
ball, Bedian, 36, steals every scene from the willowy leads. Her
character is part demon, part tough-love friend, and it’s hardly
accidental that she is almost always eating on screen – psychic Marina
could, it appears, pretty much inhale her pale, neurotic customers.

Chatting with the real Anne Bedian, however, is a casual and unaffected
sort of experience. She’s friendly, talkative and more like an excited
teen than a seen-it-all purveyor of cynical advice, more wide-eyed
than wizened. Once a Montrealer, always a Montrealer.

What a fun role!

It is! I’m kind of like Lorraine Bracco on The Sopranos – I go on for
one or three scenes per episode. For this season, anyway, I don’t get
to move from my tarot shop. And I actually look very different from
life on the show. You probably wouldn’t recognize me from pictures,
and my friends don’t recognize me on the show at all.

You were born Anne Nahabedian. Why are you changing your name?

I’m not changing my name! But since I came to the States at the
end of 2004, we shortened it to Bedian. In Canada, I still work
as Anne Nahabedian. In Canada, it was never a problem, but here,
my manager felt that Nahabedian had a Middle Eastern tone, and the
"Naha" part could have limited me or stereotyped me. But I refused
to take the "ian" out of my name, because that’s how people know that
I’m Armenian. The contraction has made it a little bit easier for me –
they would hear Nahabedian and go, "What?"

That’s kind of sad.

Yeah, yeah. It is.

You’ve been on practically every major crime drama on television. Do
you give off a suspicious air?

Ha! No, no. My work has been very dramatic so far. I’m a
Meisner-trained actor, not to say that Meisner actors can’t be funny,
but my work has gotten so serious, and I went so deep with that,
that that’s the kind of roles I’ve been getting, very truthful,
very real – the woman who has suffered. The network guys for The Ex
List obviously didn’t see my demo reel, and thank God – because if
I saw my demo reel, I wouldn’t bring me in for anything funny. But,
I’m funny. Really, I am funny!

What’s the Meisner technique?

Sanford Meisner invented this technique. He was part of the Group
Theatre in the early 1920s, in New York City, a left-wing theatre
group. And from out of that emerged Stella Adler, Meisner and Lee
Strasberg. They met with Stanislavski and were blown away, went and
studied with him, and out of that emerged new techniques. Strasberg
developed the Method, and Adler and Meisner stayed closer to
Stanislavski’s school. Meisner is known for the repetition exercise –
it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. Meisner’s definition of
an actor was "a sensitive human being who lives truthfully under a
set of given imaginary circumstances."

Do you feel like you’ve gone through your "dues" period, with all
these guest parts on popular shows?

I feel like it’s always been a ladder for me, one step at a time. I
book a small guest part, then I book a bigger guest part, then I book a
guest part on a bigger show, then I go out for recurring roles, then I
do a pilot, then I do a pilot that actually gets picked up. This year,
I feel really lucky. It’s a blessing.

You have a medal from your time in the navy. Can you kill a man with
your thumbs?

No, ha, ha, no! But with plastic explosives, a C-7 or a C-9 rifle, yes.

Excellent!

I was trained for small arms, so yeah. But not my thumbs.

And you are a follower of Kabbalah. Were you born into this, from a
Jewish heritage?

No, absolutely not! Kabbalah predates Judaism. Actually, it predates
all religions. Judaism came out of Kabbalah. This is ancient,
ancient wisdom. The major works of the Kabbalah are the books of
the Zohar, which are over 4,000 years old. It’s a commentary on the
Old Testament. One of the things I really love about it is, because
I’m such a language buff – I already have five languages down – is
that Aramaic is one of the languages. It’s such a powerful language,
it’s the language Jesus spoke. So, I taught myself to read Aramaic,
so I can read the Zohar out loud.

You could have been in The Passion of the Christ!

I could have! Totally!

Do you buy the $32 bottles of water?

Now, now, they’re not $32! They’re $10. Water picks up energy,
it’s liquid light. And that water, the $10 water, has been put in a
room in the synagogue when the prayers for healing are recited once
a year. Then the water picks up the healing energy. But they don’t
cost that much!

The Ex List premieres tonight at 9 on Global and CBS.

*****

Particulars

Born

March 15, 1972, Montreal

many talents

Bedian put her accounting training to good use when she worked as the
production accountant on the 2003 film Island Rhythms. She also did the
costume designs – which would be what, exactly, for a soft-porn flick?

What’s in a name?

Her real surname, Nahabedian, comes from the classical Armenian word
nahapet, which means "leader."